Thats odd. I haven't had crashes of any kind, and I tend to abuse the zoom feature.
I did just have a really weird glitch though. I started the Mission where you steal a few Davion mechs, and as soon as I loaded the mission, all of my mechs suddenly suffered critical damage and exploded. As near as I can tell they weren't shot at, since it happened literally right after the loading screen. I loaded the mission up a second time, changing nothing about my lance, and nothing happened that time. Tried it a third time, still no issues. Might have just been a weird little hiccup, but I figured I'd throw it out there.